Handwritten Almanac

Oliver Shorey (b. 1804) composed this handwritten almanac for the years 1820 through 1822. He laid out the pages in his almanac just as in published almanacs, including charts with tides and moons, weather predictions, and eclipses. He added illustrations, such as charts and diagrams, as well as purely decorative drawings of birds, suns, and even a view of a street. He used versus as filler at the top and bottom of some pages, just as published almanacs did, as well as a verse at the start of every month. In February of 1820 he wrote “high runs the ocean and the waves / as one year begins you know another ends / and as the day ends the night begins / and as he sun rises the morning comes eve.” Included are entries for three months of 1820, four months of 1821, and a title page for 1822, suggesting that the sixteen year old Storey was creating these almanacs as an exercise. In later life Shorey was a farmer in Elliot, Maine.